In the Overworld, zombies spawn in groups of 4 at a light level of 7 or less. In desert biomes, all zombies exposed to the sky will have an 80% chance to be replaced by husks, a zombie variant. Zombies that are not husks have a 5% chance to spawn as a zombie villager while all zombie variants also have a 5% chance to spawn as a baby zombie type. Baby zombies have an additional 5% chance of spawning as a chicken jockey.

If a player is in a village with at least 10 doors and 20 villagers at midnight, up to 20 zombies may be spawned near the edge of the village regardless of light level or transparent blocks. It can happen in any biome, even if it is Mushroom Island.

Zombie villagers comprise 5% of all spawned zombies (1% in desert, desert hills and desert M biomes, including husks). They behave as ordinary zombies, but their character model's head and face is reminiscent of that of a villager, shaded with a darker green hue. Zombie villagers retain their professions and clothes, which have a tattered appearance.

Zombie villagers can also result from zombie attacks on villagers. If any type of zombie kills a villager, there is a chance that the villager will transform into a zombie villager (100% on Hard difficulty, 50% on Normal, 0% on Easy).

Zombie villagers can be cured by using a golden apple on them while they are under the effects of Weakness, which can be applied using a splash potion of Weakness thrown by the player or a witch or a tipped arrow. A loud hissing sound will be heard if successful, and the zombie villager will begin to shudder. The curing process will take 2–5 minutes, during which time the zombie villager behaves as normal. While the zombie is being cured, it will have the Strength I effect in normal difficulty (or Strength II on hard difficulty), making it more important to isolate and restrain the zombie.

Cured villagers do not retain any trades they had before they became infected.

If the zombie villager is wearing any armor or wielding tools or weapons, those items disappear when the villager is cured.

During the curing process, it is often a good idea to keep the zombie villager away from any other zombies, because the other zombies will attack it after it is cured.

Conversion can be sped up by around 4% by surrounding the zombie villager with iron bars and/or bed blocks within a 9×9×9 cube centered on the zombie villager.[1]

A zombie villager cannot be cured by switching from Easy, Normal or Hard difficulty to Peaceful; they will simply despawn like all other monsters.

Zombie villagers can be found in Zombie Villages, a rare variant of villages with no doors and no torches.

They are faster than the normal zombies, yet they have the same HP as normal zombies. This makes the baby zombies more dangerous than their bigger counterparts.

The noises they make are higher-pitched than normal zombie sound effects.

They can sometimes ride chickens. On the Pocket Edition, they can ride other passive mobs, as well as other zombies and spiders.

Baby zombie villagers will turn into baby villagers if cured.

Worn armor shrinks to fit their body size.

They are able to fit through 1×1 block gaps.

They give 12 Experience points when killed by the player instead of 5.

Baby zombie villagers are spawned when a zombie kills a baby villager, the chance of infection being the same as adult zombie villagers. Baby zombie villagers also spawn naturally, but the combined chance (5% villagers × 5% babies) is very low at 0.25% of all newly spawned zombies. Baby husks can also spawn in warm biomes, as well as husk chicken jockeys.

A zombie with full golden armor and rotten flesh as held item, considered as a melee weapon.

Along with skeletons, some zombies are capable of picking up dropped items. These zombies will automatically hold any item they come across (except that jack o'lanterns, mob heads, and pumpkins will be worn on their heads), but if those items happen to be armor, weapons, or tools, the zombie will use them. If they encounter another similar item, they will pick it up and drop their previous item:

if both items are armor/swords and the new item is better damage-wise (reduces more damage for armor, or inflicts more damage for swords),

if both items are armor/swords with the same damage reduction/infliction, the new item has NBT tags while the old does not or the new item is moredamaged than the old item, or

if both items are bows and the new item has NBT tags while the old does not.

Items dropped by mobs in exchange for another cannot be picked up by players or mobs for 10 game ticks (0.5 seconds, barring lag), but can be picked up by hoppers.

Armor worn by zombies is not damaged from most damage sources, which means it cannot "wear out" the way player armor does. Helmets (not blocks like pumpkins) on zombies can wear away and break if the zombie is exposed to daylight or has an anvil or other falling block dropped on its head. Zombies also have a natural armor rating of 2 (), which gives 4% damage reduction from most sources.

Some zombies which can pick up items spawn already in possession of such items, and those items may also be enchanted. The chances of that event are listed below. Zombie villagers can also spawn naturally with armor, weapons or tools. If a zombie spawns wearing multiple pieces of armor, the armor will never be mismatched (i.e. all pieces will be made of the same material).

I remember the first time I had the pleasure of meeting a Husk. I had gotten myself trapped in a sandpit of my own creation (as you do). Then, looking up, I saw a silhouette towering over me, lit up against the burning desert sun. “At last, my savior!” I cried, doing a little jig for joy. But then I heard that awful zombie screech, and I was thumped over the head.

80% of zombies spawned directly under the sky in desert, desert hills, and desert M biomes will be husks. Like normal zombies, there is a 5% chance for baby husks to be spawned, and an additional 5% chance to spawn as a chicken jockey.

They behave similar to regular zombies, with the following differences:

Zombies will rarely dropiron ingots, carrots, potatoes, and any naturally spawned equipment. Any picked-up equipment has 100% chance of dropping and will drop with the same damage level it had when picked up, while any naturally spawned equipment has a 8.5% (9.5% with Looting I, 10.5% with Looting II and 11.5% with Looting III) chance of dropping and will drop with a random durability.

If a zombie wearing a pumpkin or jack o'lantern is killed using a weapon enchanted with Looting, there will be a chance equivalent to the level of Looting used to drop the pumpkin or jack o'lantern, up to a maximum of a 3% chance of a drop.

Zombies spawn in groups of 4 and will pursue the player on sight from 40 blocks away, as opposed to 16 blocks in other hostile mobs. The detection range of zombies is reduced to half of their normal range (20 blocks) when the player is wearing a zombie mob head (except in the Console or Pocket Editions). Zombies will attempt to avoid obstacles, including sheer cliffs and lava, and will try to find the shortest path towards the player.[4] Unlike skeletons, zombies do not try to avoid being hit, and continue to pursue the player even when being attacked. Zombies can sometimes deal damage through a closed door, as shown in the picture to the right. Like most mobs, zombies will always float on water, even if their target is below them.

At dawn, generally when the sun is 15 degrees or more above the ground (that is, when the moon can no longer be seen), most zombies will catch fire and burn once exposed to direct sunlight. They won't burn:

if they're in a sufficiently shaded area: a sunlight level of 11 or less;

if they're in water;

if they're caught in cobwebs;

If they're standing in soul sand;

If they're affected by Fire Resistance;

if they're wearing head armor (but the armor will take damage);

if they're either baby zombies or husks.

Zombies may make some attempt to seek out shade during the day, or enter bodies of water to protect themselves from burning up, but will exit protective areas to chase a nearby player or villager.

If they attack an entity while burning, they may set it on fire, with a (30 × regional difficulty)% chance, and with a 2 × floor (regional difficulty) second duration. If wearing armor enchanted with Thorns while burning they may set players attacking them on fire with thorns damage alone.

A zombie trying to break the door down instead of taking an alternative path.

Zombies will attack villagers within 42 blocks, and they can always see villagers through walls. Once a zombie has focused on a villager, the zombie will ignore any other villagers and the player, until its target is dead or the zombie is attacked.

Zombies in pursuit of a target will bang on closed wooden doors, and on Hard (and Hardcore) difficulty, up to 14.5% of them (depending on regional difficulty) can succeed in breaking them down. Otherwise, the door will crack, but not break. Iron doors are always safe.

On all difficulty levels, damaged zombies will also call all other zombies within a 67×67×21 to 111×111×21 area[n 1] centered on the attacked zombie to target the attacking player, like zombie pigmen.

On Hard difficulty, zombies can spawn additional zombies to “help” when damaged. Each zombie has a "likeliness to call reinforcements" statistic which ranges from 0–10%, and "leader" zombies (0–5% depending on regional difficulty) get a bonus of 50–75 percentage points to the stat. When the zombie is damaged by an entity or is damaged while targeting an entity, up to 50 attempts will be made to randomly choose a spawn location (0 or ±7–40 blocks away in all three axes) that is above a block with a solid top surface, has light level 9 or lower, has no players within 7 blocks, and has no colliding entities or blocks at which to spawn the reinforcement. Both the damaged zombie and the new zombie will have a 5 percentage point penalty to their "likeliness to call reinforcement" stat, making it less likely that an infinite number of zombies will spawn.

These effects can be negated by killing the zombie in as few hits as possible, by using environmental damage such as cactus or lava, or by avoiding them completely.

Zombies were the second mob to be added to Minecraft after humans. They could run as fast as the player. Zombies would occasionally appear wearing armor, but this had no protective effect on their health. When killed, zombies gave 80 points each to the player, but they did not drop their armor. They also had arm swinging animations when they attacked.[5]

Zombies dropped 0–2 feathers upon death. Before chickens were added in Minecraft, Notch confessed[6] that he made zombies drop feathers because he had no idea what they should have dropped when killed.

The zombies' AI was improved, giving them a much better sense of direction when pursuing the player, allowing them to navigate obstacles, and even small mazes if constructed, to get to the player. They were also given the ability to 'see' through windows, the first mob able to do so intelligently (not counting spiders, who were able to see through all blocks at the time).

The zombies' AI was improved again to cope with catching fire in sunlight. If a zombie is exposed to sunlight and bursts into flames, it will search for a body of water to douse the flames, or at least a shelter to hide from sun.

Zombies now chase and attack villagers, attack doors (breaking them on Hard and Hardcore difficulties), and sometimes drop iron ingots, helmets, shovels and swords as a rare drop. Sometimes zombies attacked villagers in preference to the player, and always chose the shortest way to the target, even if there was a door in the way.

Zombie armor was added back into the game, and they could wear any type of armor. Zombies could now also hold an iron sword or iron shovel. They had a chance of dropping these items if they had them. Iron helmets, swords and shovels were removed as rare drops.

Zombies use their attack animation like they did in Classic 0.24. This only shows when a zombie is holding a weapon. When a zombie holds a weapon the damage it does is equal to the damage the player would do with the weapon added to the normal damage of the zombie.

Armor worn by zombies works the same as it does for the player, each piece gives a certain amount of armor points, where each 1 () gives 4% damage reduction, but total damage reduction is limited to 80%.

Zombie villagers could now also spawn, and villagers now become infected when killed by a zombie. 5% of zombies spawned are zombie villagers. Infecting a baby villager creates a baby zombie villager which is faster than a normal zombie and does not age. Zombie villagers under the effects of a potion of weakness can be cured by using a golden apple on them.

Baby zombies will have a 15% chance to want to be a jockey. If they want to be a jockey, upon nearing the player they will check for one of the following to mount prior attacking: adult chickens, adult ocelots, adult wolves, adult zombies, cows, pigs, sheep, or spiders.

The zombies' AI was improved, giving them a much better sense of direction when pursuing the player, allowing them to navigate obstacles, and even small mazes if constructed, to get to the player. They were also given the ability to 'see' through windows. If a zombie is exposed to sunlight and bursts into flames, it will search for a body of water to douse the flames.

Zombies chased and attacked villagers, attacked doors (breaking them on Hard difficulty)Sometimes zombies attacked villagers in preference to the player, and always chose the shortest way to the target, even if there was a door in the way.

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